buildup

SEOUL, Oct. 6 (UPI) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited the country’s first 5,000-ton destroyer and called for bolstering naval power to “punish” threats to national sovereignty, state-run media reported Monday.

Kim visited the Choe Hyon destroyer on Sunday with high-ranking party and government officials as part of his tour of a military hardware exhibition, the official Korean Central News Agency reported.

Pyongyang launched the Choe Hyon at the Nampo Shipyard in April. The vessel is armed with a wide range of weapons, including nuclear-capable cruise missiles, according to North Korean reports.

Kim called the destroyer the “remarkable latest success” of the North’s warship-building industry and a symbol of the “rapidly developing naval forces of the DPRK,” KCNA reported.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the official name of North Korea.

The North Korean leader added that the country’s naval power “should be exercised in the vast ocean to thoroughly deter or counter and punish the enemy’s provocations for the sovereignty of the state and its security interests.”

The de facto maritime border in the Yellow Sea, known as the Northern Limit Line, has long been a source of tension between the two Koreas. North Korea does not officially recognize the NLL, which was drawn unilaterally by the U.S.-led United Nations Command after the Korean War.

The boundary area has been the location for a handful of naval skirmishes in the decades after the 1950-53 war, including the North’s 2010 torpedo attack on a South Korean warship that left 46 dead.

In January 2024, Kim called the line “illegal” and warned that even the slightest violation of the North’s territory would be considered a “war provocation.”

He later repeated the threats, saying the boundary was a “ghost … without any ground in the light of international law or legal justification.”

More recently, South Korea’s military fired warning shots after a North Korean merchant vessel crossed the border on Sep. 25.

Pyongyang unveiled a second 5,000-ton warship in May, named the Kang Kon, but the vessel suffered an accident at its launch ceremony that left it listing on its side.

Kim, who was in attendance at the launch, called the mishap a “criminal act” and warned of serious consequences for those found responsible. At least four officials were arrested in the aftermath.

The Kang Kon was repaired and relaunched in June, although analysts have questioned whether it is fully operational.

The North has vowed to build another 5,000-ton destroyer by October 2026.

North Korea’s leader threatens to speed up Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal expansion over a sign of ‘hostile intent’.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has threatened to accelerate the expansion of his country’s nuclear arsenal, condemning ongoing United States-South Korea military exercises as a sign of “hostile intent”, according to state media.

Kim, who made the remarks during a visit to a naval destroyer, called the drills “an obvious expression of their will to provoke war”, according to a report published on Tuesday.

He insisted North Korea must “rapidly expand” its nuclear weapons programme, pointing to the inclusion of what he called “nuclear elements” in the drills.

The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield drills began this week, combining large-scale field manoeuvres with upgraded responses to what the US and South Korea claim are North Korea’s growing nuclear capabilities.

The exercises will run for 11 days, with half of the 40 field training events rescheduled to September.

Purely defensive

South Korean officials said the adjustment reflects President Lee Jae Myung’s call to lower tensions, though analysts doubt Pyongyang will respond positively.

Seoul and Washington claim the exercises are purely defensive, but Pyongyang regularly denounces them as preparations for invasion and has often replied with weapons tests.

North Korea’s position is expected to feature in talks between US President Donald Trump and South Korean President Lee in Washington later this month, with efforts to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions high on the agenda.

“Through this move, North Korea is demonstrating its refusal to accept denuclearisation and the will to irreversibly upgrade nuclear weapons,” said Hong Min, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.

Research published by the Federation of American Scientists last year estimated that North Korea may have produced enough fissile material for up to 90 nuclear warheads, though the number actually assembled was likely closer to 50.

Alongside its nuclear ambitions, Pyongyang is also advancing its naval capabilities. The North Korean public broadcaster KCNA reported that the country aims to complete construction of a third 5,000-tonne Choe Hyon-class destroyer by October next year, and is testing cruise and anti-air missiles for the vessels.

For so long, the biggest question surrounding Shohei Ohtani’s future as a pitcher was simple.

When, after a second career Tommy John surgery, would he finally get back on the mound? When, after a year and a half of exclusively hitting, would he be able to resume two-way duties?

This past week, that answer finally arrived.

Twice in seven days, Ohtani climbed the bump as the Dodgers’ starter, throwing one inning in each outing in his long-awaited return to pitching.

Both times, he left his teammates and coaches in astonished amazement, giving them their first up-close glimpse of his dual-role skillset.

“I’ve seen [him throw] bullpens and lives and simulated games, or whatever,” manager Dave Roberts said Sunday. “But to kind of watch it in real time, to go from the mound to the on-deck circle and then go to the batter’s box, it’s pretty remarkable. And he’s just handling it the right way. He’s just unflappable.”

What comes next, however, remains shrouded in some uncertainty.

Now that Ohtani is again pitching in live-game action, new questions are lingering about where his build-up will go from here.

“It’s going to be a gradual process,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton on Sunday. “I want to see improvements with the quality of the pitches that I’m throwing, and then also increasing the amount of pitches. So it’s going to be gradual.”

It was no surprise that, in Ohtani’s return to pitching on June 16, he was limited to only one inning. It was a trade-off he and the team made to get him back into a real game sooner, agreeing to give him a live start even if they knew it wouldn’t extend past one frame.

Entering Ohtani’s second start on Sunday afternoon, however, the thinking was that the right-hander could be ready to push into the second — that, to eventually get stretched out for full-length starts, he would begin building up his workload by adding another inning each time out.

The way Ohtani pitched Sunday certainly warranted a second frame.

After giving up two hits and one run over a 28-pitch outing against the San Diego Padres six days prior, he collected two strikeouts in a scoreless 18-pitch frame against the Washington Nationals, his only baserunner reaching on a dropped pop fly by shortstop Mookie Betts.

“Overall, I was able to relax much better compared to my last outing,” Ohtani said. “The way my body moves when I pitch, it’s something that I worked on with the pitching coaches and I felt a lot better this time.”

However, in the top of the second, Ohtani was once again replaced on the rubber. Despite his improved execution and efficiency, it turned out he and the team had made a predetermined decision not to push him for a second inning quite yet.

“That was the original plan,” Ohtani said of being removed after the first.

“Going into today’s game,” Roberts added, “we felt really comfortable with one.”

It hammered home the reality of what lies ahead for Ohtani; the cautious, methodical and, as Roberts also described it, “gradual” pace with which the team will handle his pitching workload for the time being.

“I think that it’s more of just trying to get the foundation, the building blocks as he’s [pitching and] taking at-bats,” Roberts said. “[We are] erring on the side of caution … There’s no sense in rushing it right now.”

As Ohtani returns to pitching, there are new factors the Dodgers will have to monitor in his all-around performance.

Already, the reigning MVP has cut down on his base-stealing while ramping up as a pitcher: After swiping 11 bags in his first 50 games, he hasn’t even attempted a steal since throwing his first live batting practice session on May 25.

His place in the leadoff spot could be altered on days he pitches as well, with Roberts leaving open the possibility of moving him down in the batting order to give him more time to transition from pitcher to hitter (at least in the first inning of home games, when he currently has to hustle from the mound to the plate after the top half of the frame).

Then, there is perhaps the biggest question: Whether the burden of pitching will affect Ohtani’s all-important production with the bat?

That dynamic came under scrutiny this week, after Ohtani went just two-for-19 in the five games following his first pitching start.

“I don’t think that’s a fatigue thing,” Roberts insisted Sunday morning. “But we’ll manage it. I can only take him at his word, and the swing speed and all the stuff we sort of track is still in line.”

Ohtani did snap that slump after his inning on the mound Sunday, finishing the day with a three-run triple in the seventh and two-run home run in the eighth.

“I do feel like I do have to work on some things,” Ohtani said. “But at the same time, I do feel like I can perform better, even better than I used to be able to perform at.”

All of this is to say, while Ohtani has mastered his two-way role before (twice winning American League MVP while doing it with the Angels), the Dodgers are taking nothing for granted about his pitching comeback right now.

Before they begin adding to his pitching workload, they want to make sure they’ve accounted for any unintended side effects.

“All these conversations we have with him, obviously,” Roberts said. “He’s understanding of where he’s at, where we’re at, and appreciating the fact that as time goes on, we’ll get to a certain point.”

Before Sunday’s game, Roberts didn’t even commit to fully stretching out Ohtani like a traditional starter by the second half of the season.

“That’s kind of TBD,” he said when asked when Ohtani might be fully built-up for normal-length starts. “I think we’re always gonna be cautious. So I don’t even know what that’s going to look like, to be ‘fully built-up.’ I don’t think anyone knows what that looks like. Because it’s not a normal starting pitcher. So to say six [innings] and 90 [pitches], I don’t even know if we’ll get to that point.”

Could that mean using Ohtani as only a glorified opener for the rest of this season? Or stretching him out only if a currently shorthanded rotation doesn’t eventually get healthy?

Time will have to tell on those questions, with neither the Dodgers nor Ohtani ready to commit to any answers until they see how he continues to respond to his return to two-way duties.

“As we build more of a foundation, there will be some latitude,” Roberts said. “I think that we’re still gathering [information]. But again, once we ramp up more, it might be a different conversation.”